How to make a embossed Vindonissa cingulum plate.

[LUCIUS ALFENUS AVITIANUS]

Hello,

I have the idea to post a tutorial to make, relatively easily, a embossed cingulum plates as some ones founded at Vindonissa (Windisch, Switzerland).

Some german artist have made those plates, but i think casting the pieces, and not embossing that as was made with originals.

I have used only "roman" tools, without any electrical tool. During the tutorial you will see that kind of tools.

First of all, you have to choose the design. I have choose one with some cercles intersecting, decorated with punctim and cercles embossed. Is something like that the one at the left of the picture:



First step is to cut brass rectangles from a sheet of 0'5 mm. The roman belp plates were very thin. The dimensions i have used are 5 cm of height, and 8 cm of wide. You have to think that the final wide will be lesser, because some material are rolled to form the lateral tubes.

Second step is to mark 1 lines at 1'5 of each side. Those are the material reserved to form the lateral tubes. These lines define a square of 5 cm of side.

Now, with a pen we mark two lines that join the corners of the square. The point were the two lines intersected are the center.

[jvrjenivs]

Laudes Cesar! This will be very welcome for a lot of people, I think.

[LUCIUS ALFENUS AVITIANUS]

Thanks, Jurjenius.

With a metal pointed compass punching in the center we mark the metal with a big cercle. You have to make some pression to make a incision in the metal.

Then we draw six intersecting cercles, only the portion inside the big cercle. Those intersecting cercles have to be the same radius as the central one:




Now we put a big steel washer centered in the plate, and hammer it over a lead block. Of course, you need such item... :lol:



Then you turned the plate with the steel washer in the same position. And then, hammer with a ball pointed hammer, to make a kind of boos or umbo in the center of the piece. Think that the original plates were'nt perfectly centered, and ours will not be, because the wassher moves when you hammer it.

[LUCIUS ALFENUS AVITIANUS]

Then we put the piece on the frontal side and mark some little cercles with a punch (i don't know it's the word, it's the black tool) encercling the "umbo". Now we use a leather surface instead lead block, to not mark the brass in excess.



The next step is to mark the radius of the stars, between each intersecting cercles. We have used a cold chisel, a chisel filed to make it round shaped to avoid cutting with it.



You can see here the shape of the cold chisel.

[LUCIUS ALFENUS AVITIANUS]

The piece is a little deformed, so we have to planish it. To avoid mark the embossed parts, we use a dome forming block:



We hammer a litte over the block, and the sides turn to be plain.

[Caballo]

Laudes from me!!

[LUCIUS ALFENUS AVITIANUS]

The next step is to put some decoration in the zone intersected by the cercles. I have used one old dremel bit used as a litte stamp and hammer it over the lead block. I always give 2 litte hammer strokes, first one for set the stamp over the metal, second one for mark it more.

This is the more time consuming, the final result will be that:



Another time, the piece have been deformed,



So, we have to planish it again:

[LUCIUS ALFENUS AVITIANUS]

Now, we mark the limit of the lateral tubes. We have used another time the dome block. See one lateral yet turned:



Now we have tu use a tube forming block, and some time... :lol:

[Magnus]

Great work Cesar. What I like about your tutorials is that they're set up so anyone can try them. Laudes from me.

[LUCIUS ALFENUS AVITIANUS]

Almost finished:



Now we mark a line of dots, with the same punch used to mark the "umbo":



And then, with the cold chisel, we make some parallel marks in the tube itself, with a iron nail inside:

[LUCIUS ALFENUS AVITIANUS]

Another row of parallel marks, to make some kind of chevrons in both tubes. This is the piece:



Now, we make some planishing more, and make the holes for a future rivetting. We have place the holes in the pen lines.



And now to see the embossing work, we made some polishing:



To be continued... :lol:

[sulla felix]

Excellent work as always Cesar. Will you be tinning this like the example above (which seems to be partially tinned?)?

[LUCIUS ALFENUS AVITIANUS]

Thanks...

Yes!!! I will tin the piece and put the wire ending in balls into the tubes. Will be explained in the continuation of the tutorial...

[Hibernicus]

Bravo Cesar!

The swage block with holes is available thru Harbor Freight in the States. Comes with a set of peen punches too.

[LUCIUS ALFENUS AVITIANUS]

Hello, again.

The next step has been solder some brass bars to some brass balls (5 mm diam.) Then pass the bars by the lateral tubes and solder another ball in the another extrem. (Sorry, i havent'n make pics...)

Then, we have a finished brass plate. As the original was partially tined, i have paint the plate with tin paste, except the zones that have to be brass looking. Then i have aplied heat with the torch, until the gray compound get a silver shining. Let the piece cools, and we have to wash it with some water and soap to get out the dirty.

Then, i have polish it a little. Advice: as the tin probably goes off if you polish with machine and compounds, i have polish it with some iron wool soaked in water and soap.

Now the plate look like that. You can see that the brass parts look a little redish. This is the oxidation of brass, but it's more evident in the picture than the real thing. Another advice: don't put it in pickling solution, because it could be destroy the tin, or make it gray.



I have make 12 pieces. Now i have to make the buckle and pugio frogs.
Next week? :wink: